


Equilibrium

by FHC_Lynn



Series: Leverage [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 19:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7587013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FHC_Lynn/pseuds/FHC_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took Prowl a long, long time to understand that life went on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Equilibrium

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueberrySummers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueberrySummers/gifts).



> Requested by BlueberrySummers who wanted to see Prowl's side of Tipping Point. :D

* * *

When he had first onlined in Praxus, when his mind had finished that first all-important boot sequence, Prowl had marveled at the simple wonder of his life and world. Mentors and employers guided him through his first centuries. They encouraged his fascination with the people of his city. To serve and to protect; the importance of their safety and comfort had been hardcoded into him and prioritized even over the life he had been given. Prowl loved his people. Without choice, in retrospect, but deeply and fiercely. Built with the most powerful processor and programmed with the most advanced tactical suite, he had warned them of the genocide he saw coming.

When Praxus burned, Prowl had felt the very coding of his life fracture.

Without his city, the threads that had anchored him faded into nothing. The new, young Prime rescued (claimed) him from the wreckage and put him to work. He performed those tasks. The resultant accusations against his character fell on puzzled audials.

These were not his people, the darkness told him.

Prime rejected many of his suggested plans, forcing him to recalculate. Frustrated and confused by Prime’s shock and horror during these rejections, Prowl sunk deeper into the cold comfort the growing darkness offered. Prime did not matter. These people did not matter.

After a battlefield advancement, Jazz took control of Special Operations. It was not the first time Prowl had detected bitterness in Jazz’s voice. But he still did not understand. It had not been in Prowl’s suggested plans for Jazz’s late superior to fail.

Prowl had not planned for the mech to die. But it was not his problem.

Staring at his office door after Jazz limped out, Prowl heard the echo of that bitterness echo in his processor. For the first time since Praxus burned, he felt _pain_ in the splintering of his mind. He had cared once. He remembered caring. When his people had lived.

_It had been his duty to protect them._

These were not his people dying now, the darkness said.

But they were people. They lived and -- and --

And he had been given responsibility for them.

Many were dead now.

Prowl stared at the door. Every thought spiraled off into its own infinite loop. The ever-growing fractal pattern spun out of his control. His mind locked up, and a different darkness shut him down. When he rebooted under medical restriction in Ratchet’s care, Prowl listened to Ironhide calmly answer Ratchet’s snarled questions.

He stared at the ceiling, felt the cracks like chasms pulling him apart, and wished he had burned with Praxus.

Ratchet had let him go with orders to rest. Ironhide had followed him back to his office. The old mech said nothing, but he claimed the guest chair to watch Prowl work silently. Ironhide had always watched him, for hours at a time. And like so many other mechs here, he had at first tried to encourage him to spend time with Jazz.

Who hated him.

He had not meant for the old Special Operations commander to die.

He had not _meant_ for anyone to die.

Hands resting on his disrupted his thoughts, freeing him from another mental spiral, and Prowl looked up into Ironhide’s worried face. He let the old mech lead him away. Ironhide regaled him with stories of Iacon’s heydays. Bright galas and rusted dive bars. Prowl listened to Ironhide memories of a long, happy life, and he remembered a time when he listened to others’ lives in a city that had cracked and burned.

_These people lived._

Months, decades, millennia. He could not keep them all alive, these people that trusted him. Prowl felt Prime’s confusion as he drowned in guilt and despair when he failed. He felt Jazz watching, too, and knew that only his usefulness saved him from the hate behind it. He saw the pity in Ironhide’s gaze when the cracks began to show.

He had not expected Ironhide to suggest casual intimacy. He had accepted regardless of his disappointment in that casualness. Alone among a people not his own, he took everything Ironhide offered because it was the only offer. Ironhide’s presence filled the cracks. Prowl had not been surprised when Jazz had tried to drive Ironhide away with pointed words and narrow glances.

Between knowing Jazz was right about him and needing Ironhide, Prowl wavered. Prowl understood what he felt, whatever Jazz said about his cold spark. Prowl knew love and attachment. Simply by echoing the people Prowl had once loved, Ironhide had filled the void left by their deaths with _himself_. Ironhide had given him a bridge.

And Prowl walked across it with his hands open.


End file.
